The day Betsy went swimming

Jordan, NY - around 1966 - I don't remember all the circumstances that led up to this, all I remember is that Betsy obviously deserved it.  It was sometime around junior or senior year at Jordan-Elbridge High School. 

Friends of ours, the Haskie's, lived down on Route 31 between Jordan and Iona Corners.  One of the many cool things about their well to do home was they have a very large pond in their back yard.  Their son Pete was a friend of mine.  I had made arrangement with Pete's mom that it would be OK for me to stop by after school one day with Betsy and give her a dunk in the pond, something she was not suppose to be expecting.  There were other kids there, they knew what was about to happen...  I even seem to remember Betsy knew what the threat was, but no one thought I had the nerve to really go through with it...  but I did.  Her in her school dress went for a swim...  I think I had to go in and pull her out as I remember, geesh, and I don't hardly swim at all, at least she did...  just not too well that day.

Wheel chair races? No, this isn't the special Olympics

Hancock Field, Syracuse, NY - Things aren't like they use to be.  To begin with, this happened a very long time ago, maybe 100 years ago, way back when kids did things for fun and absolutely with no malicious intent.  We didn't break any laws that we knew of, at least not knowing so.

Don't ask me why, because I wouldn't have a clue why we use to go to the airport as kids...  kids in this case means that we could drive and had cars, obviously with nothing better to do.  Once in a while we would ride out to Hancock Field on the north end of Syracuse to see what was happening.  I'm not sure which was our favorite thing to do, but these were two that I remember most.

Back in the day, when you went to the airport to meet arriving family or friends, you could walk right down to the terminal and meet them immediately as they came off the plane and into the terminal.  There were no terrorist in the United States back then, they stayed in their own countries.  We'd find a gate where a plane was arriving.  It seemed that Barry was always arriving from somewhere.  He would either make his way onto the jet way or would just stand by the side of it until passengers were leaving the plane.  At some point, he'd just merge in with them and exit the plane too.  Boy were we excited to see him!  Yelling, screaming, hugs and a lot of hoopla.  Other passengers seemed pretty happy that we were happy as they stood and watched.  Goofy.

Well, we were sort of race fans, but sometimes there just weren't any races to go to.  What the heck, we were at the airport, there might not have been any planes coming in....  but there were wheel chairs.  It seems this was the only time I ever remember seeing or hearing from security at the airport.  They just didn't care for us racing wheel chairs up and down the long hall ways of Hancock Field.

Those are the things we did with some regularity.  I am often reminded of the night that one of the jet ways was open and there was a plane there, but no one around.  What the heck, we go check it out and what do you know, engines running, no one anywhere, I'm in the pilots seat...  I did NOT touch anything, engines running when we got on board....  that was weird, we hauled it out of there.